Claude Coombs is taking the twenty-five fugitives from Iowa
to the slave auction in St. Louis. He figures to make five hundred dollars on
each of them. The ‘Albany’ affair taught Claude a lesson. “In this business you
gotta stay close to your own kind,” Claude tells Jake. “You can’t expect those
abolitionists in the North to help us.”

“I don ’t know about that,” Jake replies, “but them niggers
whopped us pretty good.” Jake shakes his head recalling the loss of his
brother. “I just can’t believe niggers attacking white men like that. I’ll tell
you, Claude, times is changing. Things just ain’t the same. Niggers attacking
white men like that!”

Claude and Jake are guarding their captives until they can
be safely loaded aboard a river boat. One of the captives stares intently at
the timberline visible beyond the cluster of Leavenworth’s shanties. The tall
black captive tries to gauge the distance to the tree line. Hank intends to
escape. Whispering to another slave,
Hank says, “Today’s the day I’s gonna leave y’all. I’m gonna go back to Iowa,
get my family and head north to Canada.”.

“Hank, I think you should think about it awhile,” Josh advises.
“Even if you get away, they just gonna catch you again ___ what with those
scars across your back, half your ear gone and those brands they put on you.”

something fierce. Don ’t see how my wife can stand to touch
me, but she does. And I can’t leave her and the children without any way to survive
the winter. I’ve got to get back to them.” Hank was a blacksmith so Claude’s manacles
and shackles were no obstacles. There wasn’t a lock Hank couldn’t pick. He only
needed to pick the lock at the right time and make his getaway.

Until his capture several weeks earlier, Hank had lived on a
small plot with his wife and three children outside Sioux City. Five earlier,
Hank escaped from a Carolina plantation. Hank blacksmithed for local Iowa farmers,
repairing their tools, shoeing their horses and mules and making wheels for
their wagons and buggies. Claude had spotted Hank walking down a lonely stretch
of Iowa road returning from a job on a neighboring farm. Claude and his men swooped
down on the unsuspecting black man, easily subduing and manacling him. Then
they led him to a holding pen where they kept their other captives. Now they
were here at the docks Leavenworth waiting to board a St. Louis-bound riverboat.

“I don ’t see how you expect to make your escape during the
day,” Josh observes.

“The day is better,” Hank replies, “Pattyrollers patrol at
night and they have dogs. Can’t outrun those dogs. But during the day, once you
get away, you can just disappear. ’Specially if you can get outta Kansas.”

Hank didn’t understand that, night or day, it didn’t make
any difference. There was nowhere a fugitive bearing the marks of a runaway could
hide. And, under the Fugitive Slave Law, nothing and no one could interfere
with the slave catchers selling Hank back into slavery.

Claude’s black captives squatting down by the side of the
wharf in Leavanworth’s docking area waited until after the cargo, bales of
cotton, loads of tobacco and crates of every size. Hank estimated that the
timberline surrounding Leavenworth was some three hundred yards away from the docks.
The fugitives would be loaded, last, and chained in

A V I C T I M ’S G U I L T 3 4 9

the bilge area of the river boat below the engines. So while
Claude chats with Jake and the other members of his gang, Hank decides to make
his escape. He loosens himself from the manacles and shackle and begins
sneaking away from the other fugitives. Slipping between the crates and cotton
bales, Hank creeps as low as he can and moves as quickly as he dares. Not far to go now, Hank tells himself. He
rests behind the last crate between himself and the woods and prepares for a
desperate dash to the tree-line three hundred yards away. Hank gets to his feet
and, keeping low, he starts a half creep, half walk. Halfway to the trees, he
turns. None of the slave catchers have taken notice. He stands up and runs for
his life. That was Hank’s mistake. He is spotted. The alarm is raised. Shouts
fill the air. Then shots ring out. Summoning all the energy and speed he can
muster, Hank wills himself the remaining distance into the cover of the trees
where he will be safe. Almost there! Hank
hears the distinctive crack of a Kentucky long rifle from a great distance away.
It will be the last sound Hank will ever hear. A fraction of a second later, his
head explodes, the blue sky fades into blackness, his body tumbles to the
ground and his sightless eyes peer into the portal of death.

Instantly, the air is filled with yells and shouts. Grizzled
frontiersmen run to where Hank’s body lies, blood trickling from the ugly wound
in his head.

“That was the best gol ’darn shot that I have ever seen in
my entire life!” one of Claude’s slave catchers cries out. “Claude Coombes shot
half that nigger’s head off from over two hundred and fifty yards.”

“If that shot went ten yards, it went over three hundred
yards,” another shouts. Soon well wishers surround Claude and pat him on the
back, declaring that his head shot was the best one Leavenworth has ever seen. They
hoist Claude high upon their shoulders and

3 5 0 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

deposit him in the nearest saloon. Everyone celebrates
Claude’s head shot. The celebration, telling ‘tall tales’ and drinking, continues
long into the night. Claude misses the St. Louis-bound riverboat. The next day,
the ruffians display Hank’s body in front of a saloon. A sign reads: “This
nigger was shot in the head from 250 yards by Claude Coombs, September 11, 1855.”
In retelling the story, the distance continues to grow, but no one minds. With
little else to celebrate, Claude Coombs becomes a hero to ruffians and
bushwhackers prowling both sides of the Kansas Missouri border. They regale
each other with Claude’s celebrated “head shot.” But in Lawrence, the local newspapers,
the Herald of Freedom and the Free Stater, carry stories with a
different point of view. Lawrence’s newspapers call the shooting of the
fugitive slave an atrocity. Their front pages carry pictures of the dead man’s
corpse being displayed outside the Leavenworth saloon.

“Have you heard about them shooting that nigger in
Leavenworth?” Louise Collins asks Ellen.
Louise finds the event exhilarating.

“I heard it was Claude Coombs who did the shooting. They say
it was just about the best shot anyone did see in these parts.” Then in a malicious tone, Louise asks her
aunt, “Wasn’t Claude Coombs the one who tried to take you back home?”

Ellen’s face goes white. She struggles to subdue the
terrible memories the very name of that slave catcher summons to her mind. Louise’s
glows with hate.

Louise stares at her aunt with unblinking eyes. “My mother
was murdered by a burr-headed, blubber-lipped nigger running away from his
lawful master.” Louise rants in a high-pitched voice. “All escaped niggers need
to be in cages where they belong.”

Louise’s hate feels like
a slap in her face. “You blame me!” Ellen cries. “You blame me for your
mother’s death.” Pain clutches at Ellen’s heart as Louise’s face twists into an
evil grin. Ellen races from the schoolhouse to her cabin. She locks herself in
and refuses to speak to anyone for the next three days. Shields and Frank worry
about her. Yerby bangs at Ellens cabin. “You must come out,” he pleads. Its one
thing for Ellen to face her own guilt and Louise’s accusations, but Claude
Coombs terrifies her. Knowing that the slave catcher is less than fifty miles
away with nothing to prevent him from coming to the schoolhouse and seizing her
makes her hide in her cabin. So she just remains on her cot buried under her
blankets waiting. The second day, Frank again pleads with Ellen to come out;
but she will not. Ellen has never felt white; she only felt illegitimate. She always
felt that she was living a lie. She had wanted to find the truth in the arms of
another mixed-breed like herself. But that decision cost Abby her life and might
possibly cost Ellen’s as well.

After awhile, Ellen begins experiencing another emotion. It
wasn’t very strong at first, but the longer she lies in her cot the angrier she
gets. Cowering in her bed being intimidated by someone as foul as Claude Coombs
angers her. How dare this hateful, foul
man have so much power over my life? Ellen’s inner self shouts out. She’s
angry that Louise speak of Negroes as if Louise herself is not one. The longer
she lays in her cot, the angrier she becomes. I will not let him destroy me, Ellen finally decides. With that, she rises up and, though light-headed and dizzy from
her self-imposed withdrawal, she wobbles over to the door, opens it and stares
into the concerned face of Frank Yerby.

“Decided to come out, did you?” Yerby smiles.

“I’ve had enough guilt,” Ellen snaps. “Now I want to get
even.”

Ellen walks over to the schoolhouse. In Ellen’s absence,
Louise conducts the classes. The students run up, shouting, “Mrs. Collins! Mrs.
Collins!” The children give her confidence.

“I’m getting bored with this place,” Louise announces after
Ellen has been back teaching for more than a week. “I think I’d like to visit
St. Louis for awhile.”

“St. Louis?” Ellen asks. “Why St. Louis? Do you have friends
there, Louise?” All free staters know that St. Louis is the center of pro-slavery
Democratic plots and conspiracies hatched against them. The very mention
of the name, St. Louis, make free state homesteaders shudder.

“If you must know, I have a friend in St. Louis who has come
to see me from Boston,” Louise replies. It was the truth.

“From Boston!” Ellen gasps. “Who is he? Is it someone I
know?”

“His name is Caleb Cushing,”Louise smiles, pleased with her own
self-importance. “But, I don’t believe you know him.”

A week later, Louise boards a river boat for the trip down
the Kansas River to Leavenworth and over the Missouri River to St. Louis.

Caleb had booked reservations for Louise at the National
Hotel. Opened in 1832 at Third and Market, the National was St. Louis’ finest
and most elegant hotel. She had a suite with servants who brought her
champagne, drew her bath and massaged her body. The US attorney general
occupied the entire top floor of the National. For the next two weeks, Louise
and Caleb discussed the Democrat’s plan for Kansas. Actually, Caleb and Louise
only discussed Kansas when Cushing was too exhausted from their other, more
intimate, discussions. But Caleb Cushing was by no means young or athletic. So Caleb
and Louise had a lot of time to discuss Kansas.

“We are strong enough wipe out Lawrence, Topeka and any other
free state settlement in Kansas,” Caleb explains.

3 5 4 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

“So why don’t we?” Louise asks.

“Too much violence against the homesteaders could work
against us,” Caleb explains.

“How will getting rid of all those nigger-loving
abolitionists work against us?” Louise wants to know.

“We’re trying to bring Kansas into the Union as a slave
state and control all the land in the territory.” Cushing takes his time and explain
his plans carefuly to Louise. “Northern free states are not likely to support
our petition for statehood if all the homesteaders from the Northern states are
being killed.”

Louise thinks about Caleb’s response before admitting that
what he says makes sense. They are having lunch in the National’s elegant
dining room. To his distres, Cushing looks across the room and spies General
Ethan Allen Hitchcock sitting at a table with a couple of his army buddies. The
general is staring at Cushing and Louise. Cushing knows Hitchcock well. The
attorney general funds the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society. The attorney general hired Hitchcock as the
federal agent responsible for organizing the free state resistance to the pro-slavery
takeover of Kansas. Using Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Society monies, Hitchcock had
purchased all the weapons bound for Lawrence.

“Why would Cushing come all the way to St. Louis to have
lunch with that intriguing young woman?” Hitchcock asks himself. The general
resolves to learn everything he can about Louise Collins. Cushing is no fool;
he knows he has revealed himself to a dangerous adversary. Well, the attorney general decides, when the time comes, I’ll have to take care of General Ethan Allen
Hitchcock.

Three days later, Louise boards a riverboat leaving St.
Louis and steaming west. Five days later she is in the arms of Billy Quantrill in
an upper room in A.B.Miller’s hotel. And Louise knows that she is in love. She
is far happier in the squalor of Leavenworth

A V I C T I M ’S G U I L T 3 5 5

with her no good bushwhacker, than she was in the luxurious
St. Louis hotel with the Attorney General of the United States. After awhile
the lovers ’attention turned to Lawrence and the need for the vigilantes to do
their work.

“Some of their churches even held memorial services for him.
Caleb’s concerned that abolitionist sentiment is spreading all over the Kansas
territory.”

“What about Lawrence?” Quantrill mumbles.

“Lawrence is headquarters for the Kansas ‘repudiation movement’,”
Louise answers.

“I’ve been saying that we should just go down there and kill
every abolitionist we find,” Billy snorts. “When will somebody listen to me.”

“Caleb says that we need to prepare first.”

“Prepare what?”

“Caleb wants them to form a militia,” Louise explains. “He
knows just the person to put in charge, a deserter from the Mexican war, Jim
Lane. He wants them to have some of those guns that we’ve got. You know, the muskets,
rifles and some of those Navy Colts.” Cushing doesn’t know about the Sharp’s
rifles smuggled into Lawrence under the false bottoms of shipping crates marked
“Books.” Jim Lane’s militia has
Sharp’s rifles, but no ammunition. Neither do they have cannon balls or cannon
shot for their howitzer. In fact, Lawrence has little gunpowder or shot for the
standard muskets and pistols.

“Well, honey lamb, you can’t just go in and shoot up a whole
town that can’t shoot back.”

“Why not?” Quantrill asks. “We just need to get it over
with.”

“For one reason,” Louise replies, “Caleb doesn’t want you
to. He didn’t go to all the trouble of getting them those rifles and not have them
used. And you can’t start a war with only one side doing all the shooting. It
takes two sides to start a war, Honey Chile, just like it’ll take Northern votes to bring
Kansas into the Union as a slave state. We won’t get their votes if you go into
Lawrence, killing and shooting all the free staters and they’re not fighting
back.”
“Why do we want them fighting back?”

“How else are we going to blame them for starting an
insurrection against the government?”

“If their policy of repudiation catches on,” Quantrill says,
“there will be no war and Kansas will be lost. Does Caleb know that?”

“All you men ever think about is your little wars,” Louise
smiles demurely. “Of course, Caleb has thought about it. He has organized the Jayhawkers
under Jim Lane, didn’t he?”

“Caleb didn’t organize them, you did!“ Billy Quantrill says
in a voice tinged with jealousy. “You just twisted that Jim Lane around your
finger. When the time comes, Caleb can thank you when he is forced to send in
the army to restore order in Kansas.”

“Yes!” Louise smiles. “And you and I will see a petition for
admitting Kansas into the union as a slave state pass Congress. But right now, Lawrence
needs ammunition for their weapons so that they can fight back when you attack
them.”

Billy Quantrill understands that Caleb and Louise have
already made their plans without him, so he sulks. “I don’t think I can take much
more of her bossing me around like she does,” he mutters himself.

As if she could hear his thoughts, Louise replies, “But
Caleb didn’t say nothing about letting more nigger-lovers into Lawrence or
letting Lawrence continue getting their supplies.”

A V I C T I M ’S G U I L T 3 5 7

Looking at Louise, Billy breaks into a smile and lets out a
yell. Quantrill loses no time ordering hordes of vigilantes and border ruffians
into Kansas.“Nothing and no one is to reach Lawrence,” he tells them. Vigilantes
from Missouri, South Carolina and Texas pour into Leavenworth, signing on to
patrol free state settlements all over Kansas especially those around Lawrence.
The bushwhackers rob every free state homesteader unfortunate enough to fall
into their hands. They ambush wagons with supplies bound for Lawrence.
Vigilantes shoot and lynch many of the homesteaders and, leaving their bodies unburied
as a warning to others.

As the blockade around Lawrence tightens, free state
homesteaders feel the shortages. The children are hungry. Ellen notices a steady
decline in school attendance.The children who come to school are listless and
inattentive. The churches are unable to help their parishioners. Citizens
complain. Mayor Hoyt asks Jim Lane to address the town council and repudiation
committee.

“The problem is simple,” Lane says. “There is not enough food
and supplies getting through the blockade. But my militia cannot escort the
supply trains through the blocade, because we have no ammunition for our
weapons.”

“Isn’t there a way to bring in more supplies without
resorting to violence?” Mayor Hoyt asks.

“We are not resorting to violence,” Louise retorts. “We are
protecting what is ours. But if Colonel Lane is to protect us, he needs ammunition
for his rifles.”

“What do you suggest, Colonel?” Hoyt asks.

“Someone must go out and bring gunpowder and ammunition into
Lawrence,” Lane replies. This is what Stoddard Hoyt had feared. The mayor had
hoped that by keeping

3 5 8 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

the gunpowder and ammunition out of Lawrence, he could avert
bloodshed. “The roadhouse on the Santa Fe Road is outside the vigilantes’ blockade,”
Louise reports, “Ammunition and gunpowder is available there for a price.”

“Who do you suggest we send for it,” Mayor Hoyt asks.

“The vigilante pickets are far too gallant to molest women,”
Louise replies. “My Aunt Ellen and I should be able to bring the powder and
ammunition back to Lawrence without any problem.” Turning to Ellen, she asks, “You
don’t have any objection do you?” Ellen hesitates briefly, but agrees. The repudiation
committee and town council approve Louise’s recommendation and give Ellen and
Louise permission to ride out to the Santa Fe roadhouse for the gunpowder and
ammunition for Jim Lane’s militia.

When Ellen and Louise return from the committee meeting, Frank
senses that something is wrong;

“Louise and I are going out to the Santa Fe Roadhouse to
pick up gunpowder and ammunition for the Lawrence militia,” Ellen informs him.

“If the bushwhackers and vigilantes from Missouri attack Lawrence,
our militia will need ammunition and gunpowder to defend us.” Ellen simply
states the facts.

“How compatible with your Cathar beliefs is getting
gunpowder and bullets that will be used to kill other humans?” Yerby’s cooment
is meant to catch Ellen off guard.

Ellen doesn’t know whether to feel hurt or amused. So she
just smiles and says, “I know you worry about me, Frank, but don’t. This is
something I must do. I owe it to Louise.”

“You don’t owe Louise anything.” Yerby’s tone is calm.

“I owe Louise her mother’s life,” Ellen says.

“Have you considered that Louise may be working with the
vigilance party?” Frank asks Ellen.

Ellen does not hesitate. “Yes, I have considered it. But I
don’t believe that it’s possible. Louise has colored blood. She wouldn’t
protect those guilty of murdering her own

A V I C T I M ’S G U I L T 3 5 9

mother. I know she seems a little confused but I refuse to
believe that of Louise.”

“Louise is not confused!” Yerby says, He uses a sharp and
critical tone. “You are the only one who is confused. Louise knows very well
what wants.”

“And what is that, Frank?” Ellen asks.

“She wants vengeance.”

“All I have ever done was try to love her,” Ellen sighs

“Love simply enrages those who hate,” Yerby says. “Louise
doesn’t think the way we do.”

“But why shouldn’t I love her?” Ellen sighs. “I am her aunt.
Her mother was my sister. I loved Abby so much___ I would not have harmed her for the world.”
Tears gather unbidden in Ellen’s eyes. They begin their gentle descent down her
cheeks. And then great heaves of emotion seize her convulsing Ellen’s entire
body into uncontrollable sobs. All Yerby can do is hold her close while the
flood of tears wash away her pain. After awhile, Yerby says, “You may want Louise’s
forgiveness, but she isn’t ready to forgive you.”

Even though his words were meant to be comforting,Yerby sees
the terrible hurt in Ellen’s eyes. “But if anything can reach her, your love
can,” he adds.

Later on in the evening, Frank and Shields discuss what they
should do. “Mayor Hoyt and the committee are sending women because they don’t
expect the vigilantes to molest them,” Yerby says. “If we ride with them, the
chances of their being stopped will increase.”

“On the other hand, they might just think we the white women’s
servants,” Shields replies.

“The vigilantes know that there are no slaves in Lawrence,”
Yerby says. “No, I think we need to stay away from them but keep them in sight,
which means we need horses.“

“Well, that may be what you think, but I intend to be right
in that wagon with Ms. Ellen all the way to the Santa Fe Roadhouse and back,”
Shields says.

The next day before dawn Yerby rides out towards the Santa
Fe Roadhouse. At a good pace, Shields and the two women drive their wagon out
of Lawrence at the same time.

3 6 0 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

Yerby rides across the plains keeping the wagon in sight
while watching for horsemen riding the Santa Fe Road in either direction. All
day, he sees no one. Louise arranged that the vigilantes not interfere with
their journey to the roadhouse. She planned this to be a pleasant journey for
Ellen since it would be her last. Shields pulls the wagon up to the entrance of
the Santa Fe Roadhouse just as evening stars make their appearance in the purpling
sky.

The Santa Fe Roadhouse is a compound of log cabins clustered
near a solid two-story log structure surrounded by a high wooden fence, gated
front and rear. The roadhouse is far sturdier and more solidly constructed than
most of the buildings in Lawrence. It was originally built as a army fort, but
was abandoned once all the Indians in the area had been exterminated. The
roadhouse had a big barn for horses and wagon. The main building opened into a
great hall with a huge stone fireplace raised above the floor. Opposite the
hall was a large dining room with two long tables facing each other. At the end
of the dining room was the entry to the kitchen. To the left of the entry, stairs
led to the guest rooms. Louise and Ellen approach a beaming elderly gentleman
behind a great desk.

“Welcome! Welcome! How long will you be staying with us?”
The hostler squints through round spectacles that do little to improve his failing
eyesight.

“Just until tomorrow morning,” Louise replies. “We have come
to take delivery of books

A V I C T I M ’S G U I L T 3 6 1

and supplies for the school in Lawrence.”

“Yes, of course, Madam,” the proprietor responds. “We have a
very nice room for you upstairs.Your boys can stay out in one of the cabins.”

“Do you have separate rooms for me and my aunt?” Louise asks.

“Of course,” the proprietor replies.

As the women go upstairs to wash the Kansas plains off their
hands and faces, Frank helps Shields water and feed the horses. After attending
to the animals, they return to the main building just as Ellen and Louise come
downstairs.

“You two boys can go out to the cabin in the rear,” the
smiling roadhouse manager says. “Suzie back in the kitchen will ring the bell when
she has your food buckets ready.”

“Yessir,” Shields says. He and Frank retreat back out the
door to an empty cabin in the rear.

In the main hall, several men lounge about in front of the
great fireplace. One, in particular, Billy Quantrill, is all too familiar to
Louise. Claude Coombs and Jake are also
present. Louise watches to see Ellen’s reaction to the fugitive slave catcher.
Louise’s eyes gleam devilisly. Louise has waited for this moment for nearly
five years. She now has Ellen completely under her control. Not even her
niggers outside in their cabin can help Ellen now.

Two other men slouching about in the hall also belong to Quantrill’s
gang. However, one of them is a spy. Hitchcock sent this army officer to Leavenworth
to join Quantrill’s vigilance committee. Other men lounging about the hall do not
belong to Quantrill’s vigilante group. The roadhouse keeper cannot remember
when he had so many guests ___ all arriving on the same day.

3 6 2 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

Across from the great hall in the dining area, Hitchcock has
additional men. The general had sent twenty men to the Santa Fe Roadhouse, as
soon as he discovered Louise’s plot. They had been at the roadhouse most of the
day.

But just as Ellen shrinks away from the infamous slave
catcher, an authoriative voice booms from the entryway. “I don’t believe she is
interested in your company.”

General Hitchcock slowly walks into the great hall. Behind
him are Yerby and Green. “Ellen, please step over here. Gentlemen …” At Hitchcock’s
command, his men in the great hall as well as those entering the hall from the
dining room, draw their pistols. The vigilantes are taken by surprise.

“If you gentlemen
will drop your weapons,”Hitchcock continues to Quantrill and his men, “you will
be searched. Please cooperate and you will soon be on your way.”

Louise is livid. She and Quantrill exchange looks. How can this be happening? Billy reads Louise’s
eyes. Suddenly she leaps for the revolvers lying on the floor and shouts, “Here,
Billy, kill her! Kill her!”

But neither Billy Quantrill nor Claude Coombs are fools. They
have killed so many homesteaders, that neither expect any mercy from General
Hitchcock. Both take advantage of the diversion to race for the door and make
good their escape. But Jake, who was always apt to do something stupid, takes
the gun from Louise. Hitchcock’s men, all army veterans, are clear- headed
under fire. Jake gets as far as cocking the trigger before the guns in the
hands of all seven men bark. In an instant, Jake’s body convulses violently
under the impact of the forty-four caliber lead balls simultaneously slamming
into him. The slave catcher is dead even before his body hits the floor. But
not all of the bullets hit Jake. Others find another target. Louise lies crumpled
on the floor next to Jake. Her face twists into a hateful grimace; blood
trickles from two wounds in her chest.

A V I C T I M ’S G U I L T 3 6 3

“You must leave at
once,” the roadhouse proprietor says emerging from behind the reception desk. “This
will look bad for me ___ very bad.”

“Come on, Ellen, your ‘books’ are loaded in your wagon,”
Hitchcock tries to guide Ellen toward the door. But Ellen pulls away and, sitting
on the floor, cradles Louise’s head in her lap and gently rocks to and fro just
as she had Dwight Jr. and Elaine when they were babies. “Come, Ellen,” Hitchcock
repeats. “Those others are on foot, but we will need time to get away.” Ellen continues
to rock Louise, as if she does not hear him. Finally, Hitchcock thunders, “Ellen,
snap out of it. We must go now!”

Ellen looks up and says, “She had so much hate in her.” Then
she gets up and she says, “We can’t just
leave her here.”

“What do you suggest we do?” Hitchcock asks. He is used to
leaving the fallen where they lay.

“We must bring her back to Lawrence and give her a proper
burial.”

Frank and Shields hitch the wagon to a fresh set of horses.
They wrap and load Louise’s body onto the wagon. Hitchcock’s men drive the
wagon loaded with ammunition for the Sharp’s rifles and crates of gunpowder and
shot. The full moon bathing the Kansas prairie in a bright light guides the
party back to Lawrence. On a couple of occasions, riders —or rather the shadows
of riders — are spotted, but just before dawn the group descends the familiar
plain and, without further incident, deliver the ammunition, powder and shot
into Lawrence.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX

Why are we wasting time?” Quantrill’s impatience swells into
anger. “We have enough men here to wipe out every nigger-loving abolitionist in
Kansas, starting with Lawrence.”

Davy Atchison patiently listens Quantrill’s ranting.
Atchison owns large swaths of land in Missouri, most of which was originally Indian
land. But the process of identifying good land with access to water, driving
off the Indians and aquiring title through land office took patience. Atchison was
an important member of the Democratic Party’s inner circle, that also took
patience. Biding his time while taking orders from the attorney general’s
mistress, took a level of patience that would have destroyed lesser men. Now
with the death of Louise Collins, Davy is the US attorney general’s number two man
in Kansas and is committed to the government’s absorbtion of the Kansas
territory into the United States. Billy Quantrill, Jefferson Davis’ protégé,
gives the orders in Leavenworth, but Quantrill
needs Atchison’s men to launch an attack on Lawrence. Atchison has a company of
three hundred vigilantes in Leavenworth, camped at Salt Creek three miles
away. Another eight hundred ruffians
work on Davy Atchison’s three Missouri plantations. To attack Lawrence, Quantrill
needs Atchison’s men and Atchison counsels patience.

3 6 6 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

“I know how you feel about Lawrence,” Atchison tells
Quantrill. “Miss Collins was a fine woman and a patriot. All of us mourn her
loss. We have all vowed to make them damned abolitionists in Lawrence pay for
what they did. But we can’t go off half cocked.”

“You ain’t scared are you Davy?” Billy asks.

“No, I ain’t scared, Billy,” Davy replies. “But I heard tell
that those were soldiers at that roadhouse. Everything must be done legal or we
might find ourselves fighting them army boys out of Fort Leavenworth.” Actually,
Atchison was more concerned with the free staters with Sharp’s rifles then the
Army. He didn’t want his men slaughtered in a senseless attack on Lawrence. Atchison
never understood why Louise and Billy let the abolitionists in Lawrence get
weapons in the first place.

“Well Davy,” Quantrill asks his second in charge, “what do
you suggest that I do.”

“You know Wilson Shannon, don’t you, Lyle?” Quantrill asks the
balding, middle-aged editor of The Herald,
Leavenworth’s only newspaper. Billy had invited Lyle Eastin to join him for a
drink. Billy wanted to discuss Kansas politics with the newspaper editor. Like
everyone in Leavenworth, Lyle Eastin is a drunk and eyes Quantrill’s bottle of
well-aged whiskey, greedily. Billy Quantrill pours the editor a glassful and
Lyle Eastin slurps it down in a single gulp.

“You mean the newly appointed governor of Kansas?” Eastin
replies.

“The very same,” Quantrill says, pouring the editor another
glass.

“Certainly I know the new territorial governor, my boy.”
Eastin beams as he downs another shot. “I was wondering why you invited me over
to your table.”

“I need a favor.”

“You need me to put in a word with my friend, Governor
Shannon?”

“Don’t you think that the governor should know about the lawlessness
in Lawrence?” Quantrill asks, giving the editor of The Herald a sly look.

Stumbling to his feet, Lyle Eastin downs his final glass of
whiskey before lurching out of Miller’s. And true to his word, after sobering
up somewhat, Lyle Eastin sends his friend, Wilson Shannon, a message alerting him
to the alarming conditions in Lawrence where heavily armed outlaws are
entrenched inside the city limits. Furthermore, Eastin informs Shannon that
over a thousand of these outlaws, armed with cannon and Sharp’s rifles, are resisting
legal authority and threatening the lives of innocent families who came to
Kansas from Missouri to claim the free land granted them by the federal
government. Eastin recommends that the governor call for a volunteer militia to
engage and disband this free state militia calling themselves, ‘repuudiators’.

Daniel Woodson, who serves as Governor Shannon’s secretary,
receives Eastin’s telegraph message. Woodson is the head of the Kansas Law and Order Party and personally
approved every law and order office holder sitting in the Kansas territorial
legislature. Woodson is Cushing’s man in Lecompton. He had little success
urging Governor Reeder to take action against Lawrence’s repudiation movement.
He hopes to have more success with Reeder’s replacement, Wilson Shannon,
pushing the Democratic Party pro-slavery agenda.

“It’s time to act,” Woodson tells Governor Shannon. Woodson
thrusts a proclamation in front of him calling for a state militia to enforce
the law in Lawrence. Shannon signs the proclamation. Woodson contacts Caleb
Cushing and awaits further instructions.

Over 1500 vigilantes answer Governor Shannon’s call for a
state militia. Alarmed his attorney general’s report that free staters are
repudiating the law, President Franklin Pierce directs his Secretary of War,
Jefferson Davis, to put federal troops from Fort Leavenworth at the disposal of
Governor Shannon. subdue free stater
lawlessness in and around Lawrence. Governor Shannon wires Fort Leavenworth’s
commander to march upon Lawrence as soon as he receives the authorization from
Washington. With the law in Kansas on their side, the pro-slavery leaders in
Washington are anxious to crush the free-state movement once and for all. Woodson
receives a message from Cushing: Notify Quantrill,
Atchison and Miller to march on Lawrence.

“The Repudiation Committee will come to order,” Mayor Hoyt
announces. “Governor Shannon desires to address us about this most urgent
situation.” Twenty members of Lawrence’s repudiation committee and the town
council meet with the territorial governor of Kansas. Lawrence is ringed with
border ruffians and vigilantes. Lawrence’s citizens wait outside to learn how
the governor proposes to abort the threatened attack. Most of the free state
homesteaders see Wilson Shannon as the enemy. Shannon is a member of the Kansas
Law and Order Party. Shannon was appointed to serve the interests of Washington’s
pro-slavery Democratic Party. The governor had issued the proclamation raising
the state militia, made up of Missourians, that for weeks had rampaged about Lawrence,
murdering free state homesteaders. But Wilson Shannon was unwilling to order
the final bloody assault on Lawrence. Instead, Shannon decided to resolve the
situation peacebly.

“As your territorial governor,” Shannon begins, “I have come
to resolve what has become a serious misunderstanding between the citizens of
Lawrence and myself. Regardless of the rumors, I did not request those
vigilantes from Missouri to represent the government

of Kansas in a war against the town of Lawrence or any other
town here in Kansas.”

“Then what are you proposing, Governor?” asks one council member.

“In return for the commitment of the citizens of Lawrence
not to resist the execution of any laws enacted by legal authority, I will discharge
Missourians from my territorial militia and send them back to Missouri.”

“But what if they
come anyway, Governor?”

“I will commission a militia from Lawrence under the command
of General Jim Lane, here, to take any action he believes appropriate to resist
the attack. In addition, the Kansas territorial government will pay any damages
or loses suffered at the hands of an illegal invasion. I will have any illegal
invader arrested.”

With that the committee wastes no time in approving Governor
Shannon’s proposed peace treaty. Once he completes his business with Mayor Hoyt
and the citizens of Lawrence, Governor Shannon goes out to where Quantrill’s vigilantes
and bushwhackers are camped.

3 7 0 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

“The citizens of Lawrence have agreed to allow all legal
writs and warrants to be served by the sheriff,” Shannon informs the
vigilantes. “There’s no longer any need for your

Their men had been camped outside Lawrence for some time
anticipating their share of the loot.

“We can’t back out now,” Quantrill shouts at Shannon, “our
men won’t stand for it.”

“If you attack,” Shannon tells them,“I’ll have the army hunt
you down as outlaws.”

But in the end it’s not Governor Shannon’s threat but the
weather that turns the vigilantes back. Even as the governor discusses the
situation, a wind suddenly blows down from the arctic. The blast chills everything
it touches. By the time the governor and his party sets out for Lecompton, the winds
have blown in an arctic storm. The temperature plunges to zero. The winds blow
a blizzard of snow and sleet. The blizzard forces the ruffians who wear little more
than a shirt and saddle pants, to retreat back to Leavenworth and saves Lawrence
from destruction this time. The next time, Lawrence will not be so fortunate.

A V I C T I M ’S G U I L T 3 7 1

Most of Lawrence homesteaders celebrate Governor Shannon’s
peaceful settlement. However, one tall, raw-boned homesteader with a bearded
face and piercing, unsmiling eyes, rails against it. Recently, John Brown
joined the free state settlement at Osawatomie. When news of the attack on
Lawrence reached his settlement, John Brown and his four sons joined other free
staters coming to the town’s defense, arriving in Lawrence on the day the
treaty was announced.

“The only way of concluding this issue is by soundly
thrashing them law and order bushwhackers,” John Brown thunders. “We’ve gotta
send those vigilantes back to Missouri with their tails between their legs.”

But the citizens of Lawrence who have suffered a protracted
blockade welcome the end of the violence. John Brown is an outsider; he hadn’t
suffered hunger as the others had. Members of his family hadn’t been lynched
and had their land stolen as others had. Only Ellen Collins pays any attention
to John Brown. Though she shudders at his words, Ellen believes the stern-faced
prophet is right.

“Lawrence has not seen the last of those bushwhackers,”
Ellen confides to Frank even as the arctic winds blow in the harsh winter
storm.

“If you believe that John Brown is right,” Yerby replies, “then
we better start getting ready.”

“How?” Ellen asks.

3 7 2 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

“Those ‘bushwhackers’ will be back with their blockade,”
Yerby reasons. “You’d better be thinking about how to keep supplies coming in.”

“…and us getting out,” Shields chimes in.

“You’re right about that,” Ellen agrees.

Ellen continues convening the meetings of the repudiation
committee. She tries to get them to plan for the defense of Lawrence. But the
committee believes that the defense of Lawrence should be handled by Jim Lane
and Lawrence’s militia. They are armed, and have ammunition.

“The fact that the militia is armed with Sharp’s rifles does
not change the facts,” Ellen argues.

“What facts?”

“When Lawrence was surrounded by vigilantes, Jim Lane and
his militia did nothing to defend Lawrence,” she says. “And he won’t do anything
the next time, either.”

“We have the governor’s word,” one town councilman says.
“There won’t be a next time.”

“There will be a next time.” Ellen warns. “ Believe me. Evil
never rests.”

The spring of 1856, following Governor Stoddard’s uneasy
peace settlement, the free staters hold a constitutional convention in Topeka. They
draft a petition for statehood and elect state constitutional officers. The
convention elects Charles Robinson governor of the free state of Kansas. All
over Kansas free staters cheer the Topeka Movement, but, very quietly, the
pro-slavery forces cheer the Topeka Movement as well.

“A Lecompton grand jury has indicted every officer elected
by the Topeka Convention on charges of treason,” Quantrill exults. The Topeka
Convention’s petition for statehood included a prohibition against slavery in
violation of Kansas territorial law.

“That’s what we’ve been waiting for,” Atchison beams.

3 7 4 F R A N K Y E R B Y :

“They indicted the
Free State Hotel as well as the Herald of
Freedom and Free State newspapers
in Lawrence,” Quantrill gloats. “We’ll burn them to the ground.”

“Call out the boys,” Atchison says.“Now we’ll show those nigger-loving
abolitionists who runs Kansas.”

On May 21,1856, once again, the earth around Lawrence
rumbles and the air is thick with dirt and dust as hundreds of riders thunder
across the plains. This time the riders don’t wear white ribbons nor do they
intend to vote. The riders are armed and are intent on violence.

Ellen and the other members of the repudiation committee
meet with the mayor and the town council in
Lawrence’s Free State Hotel.

“What should we do?”

“We must defend ourselves,” says Gaius Jenkins, a free state
homesteader, who owns a forty acre parcel. One of the free state constitutional
officers elected in Topeka, Jenkins is under indictment for treason.

“Mayor, we can’t fight these vigilantes,” a councilman says.
His sentiments are echoed by most of the others.

While Quantrill waits Members of the repudiation committee trudge
over to the wooden shanty that serves as Lawrence’s armory. The vigilantes are
anxious; they have waited a long time for this opportunity and they are eager for
action. But they wait for their orders. Quantrill looks around Lawrence. There
is a stark difference between Lawrence and Leavenworth. The streets of Lawrence
are clean with neat rows of wooden houses boasting modest flower gardens in the
front and large vegetable gardens in the rear. Church spires pierce the sky
giving the town a look of culture and charm. Lawrence’s commercial enterprises
include general and hardware stores, an apothecary, post and telegraph offices,
a land claim and legal office, livery stables, doctors, dentists, shipping
firms, warehouses and two newspapers. Billy Quantrill hates Lawrence.

In contrast, Leavenworth is a squalid and filthy pesthole
whose only commercial activities are located in gambling, drinking and
prostitution houses. Leavenworth’s denizens are primarily engaged in land
grabbing, intimidation and murder.

Lawrence’s citizen committee delivers five boxes of Sharp’s
rifles, one hundred rifles altogether. One of Ellen’s precautions was to hide
boxes of Beecher’s “bibles,” containing two hundred Sharp’s rifles. However, Quantrill
only expects to find the hundred rifles and the the six pound howitzer cannon.
He is satisfied. “Take those rifles back to camp,” he orders. “Get that
howitzer ready!”

“Yessir,” one of his men says. The men are eager.

“Search the town,” Quantrill
orders. “Seize any contraband and arrest every Topeka leader you find. If
anyone resists, shoot them and burn their house down.”

And the outrages begin. The vigilantes raid and loot every
home. They take money, valuables, clothes and livestock. Quantrill’s men shoot
a number of citizens; some for resisting; other for the pleasure of killing. Women
plead with the invaders, but to no avail. The law and order vigilantes set wooden
cabins ablaze. The fires spread to many. Men are shot trying to save their
homes. One of those shot is the brother-in-law of the Reverend Ephraim Nute, pastor
of Lawrence’s Unitarian Church. His scalp was taken back to Leavenworth as a
trophy. Gaius Jenkins and other free state party leaders are arrested.

Quantrill orders his men to fire the howitzer first on the
newspaper offices, then on the Free State Hotel. He wants them each destroyed. For
hours the vigilantes set about their task, going house by house, looting and burning.
Quantrill watches as his men shoot shell after shell into Lawrence’s hotel and
newspaper offices. After inflicting as much damage as possible, Quantrill
orders what remains of the buildings to be burned to the ground.

While Quantrill is raiding Lawrence, Davy Atchison leads his
men looting, pillaging and burning homesteaders in the vicinity of Lawrence.. But
even before the first building is burned or the first citizen shot, Claude
Coombs searches all over Lawrence for Ellen Collins. Claude has a score to settle. But throughout
that day and over the next several, Claude searches in vain. One of the first
tasks Shields Green had set for himself after the governor’s temporary treaty
was to build an escape tunnel from the school. He and Frank dig and reinforce
an escape tunnel that leads to a secret trail leading up into the foothills. By
the time Claude has begun his search, Shields, Frank and Ellen are secure in a cave
on the side of Mount Oread in the foothills overlooking Lawrence.

Upon hearing of the attack, John Brown and his sons rush to Lawrence.
Once again, he is late. Already loaded down with plunder and loot, Quantrill’s
vigilantes are straggling back to Leavenworth. However, Davy Atchison’s
vigilantes attack on free state settlements lead them to Osawatomie. They loot
and burn down John Brown’s home as well as the homes of his neighbors. When John
Brown returns and finds his home destroyed and his belongings gone, he rides to
a pro-slavery settlement on thePottawatomie Creek. Sneaking up a number of individual
cabins, John Brown captures five sleeping pro-slavery men. Brown orders his
sons to kill the five men in front of their wives and children. Four are hacked
to death with swords. The fifth is shot attempting to escape.

During the next several months, the law and order vigilance party
imposes an embargo against Lawrence. Not a sack of flour or bushel of meal is
available for miles around. Over two thousand men, women and children in
Lawrence slowly starve. And in Washington, the Democratic Party congradulates itself on
the destruction of those homesteaders who
intended to make Kansas a free state.

Do not miss the final episodes of this exciting Frank Yerby adventure.